A final post.

Unfortunately the first year of my course is coming to an end. having produced a final portfolio and delivered a presentation yesterday, today it was about packing up and leaving the studio ready for the exhibition. 

This year has been a real adventure, an eye opener into the world of graphic design which has brought joy and tears, excitement and bordom, new friends, and has given me more understanding the world of design as a whole. It has been a very intensive year learning right from the basic about design such as typography, image making, layout design, working with quantity over quality, briefs that span over months to briefs completed within an hour, the importance of primary and secondary research. I've looked at briefs that were random to the absolute serious, I've learned how to use a mac computer and have invested in a professional macbook pro myself, I've been to paris and explored my home town in an all new way, I learned how to do an essay and how not to do one, I learned about the discipline of manual printmaking, I've made 5+typeface design, and I collected over 200 samples of dust. I have had so many new experiences its hard to describe them, this is a 100 list about me, my experiences this year both personal and in my practice as a designer, originally an idea for the final project 'Speaking from Experience' a 100 list about 08/09.

        001. Name: Carl Dale, Holderness                                002. Age: 20

           003. Age I would like to be: 19

                                          004. Hometown: Dewsbury, West Yorkshire

            005. Current residential status: living at home           006. Employment: Part-time Sales Assistant Monsoon/Accessorize

 007. Time at current employment: 2 years 7 months

                        0 08. Previous education: Foundation Diploma, LCAD            009. Graphic Design work experience: none

        010. Driving licence: yes

                                      011. Approximate miles to college: 7.2

       012. Hours spent on the bus each week: 9

          013. Times late to college: once a week (approx)                    014. Relationship status: in a relationship

    015. Friends Made: 70+

                  016. Colleagues left: 11                                            017. Holidays this year so far: Paris

                                           018. Up-coming holidays: Turkey, Centerparks         019.  Beers spilt over oneself: 2

        

                                                     020. Favourite Xbox game: Resident Evil 5          021. Xbox games purchased: 8

                                 022. Bags purchased: 6

         023. Halloween Costume: Darth Vader’s Apprentice                                                 024. Haircuts: 7

 0 25. Friends counted: 517+

           026. Critical studies lectures attended: 14

                                                                             027. Times cried: 2

                                                028. Design magazines purchased: 0

                               029. Typefaces made: 2

                                           03 0.   Canaries Drawn: 17                   031. Dust swabs collected : 200 +

        032. New favourite Programme: Fringe

  033. Hours spent playing Gears of war: 34.5                                          034. Don’t panic packs collected:5

                                                              035.  Blog posts made: 78

  0 36. Scalpels purchased:2

                                                     037. Books bound: 9                             038. Favourite bar: Mook

           039. Most recent band seen: Basement Jaxx

      040. Design Competitions entered: 3                        041. Design Competitions won: 0           

                                                          042. Plants purchased: 3        043. Books rented from the library: 22

                      044. Highest grade:  1st

                                               045. Lowest grade: unmarked

                                                       046. Print processes learned: 6 

   047. Most expensive purchase: USB turntable

                                                                   048. Least expensive purchase: Graph paper

                                                       049. “How to...” subject: determine if your cat need medical attention.

                  050. Summer brief vowel: I

                                051. Alphabet Soup Word: Edit                                      052. Films viewed at cinema: 3

            053. Kashmir curries eaten: 27

 054. Total monies spent : £5000+ (including fees)

                                                         055. Friends flats stayed over: 2    056. Favourite new designer: Mike Perry

         057. Most wanted book: Visionaires 56* magazine

                                                 058.  Favourite design book: Neubauwelt

                                                                                  071. Intention to move out next year: no

                  072. Monies made from graphic design:  £0.00

 

                       073. Favourite animal : octopus                             074.    Favourite illustrator: Nicholas Di Genova

                075. Favourite food: mushrooms           076. Most hated brief: what is a line?

       

                                                         077. Favourite module: printmaking elective       078. Bonfires attended: 2

                       07 9. Times completely wasted: 5

                                   080. Most common partner: Hannah Jackson

            081. Most inspiring peer: Chloe Galea         059. Episodes of friends watched: 100+

                                               060. Unusual food eaten: octopus                          061. Newspapers bought: 1

  062. Most Unusual design brief: a book about 100

     063. Favourite typeface: Mrs Eaves

                                                   064. T-shirts printed: 0

                                                        065. Monies for a Macbook pro: yes

                                                                            066. Monies spent on a Macbook pro: not yet, too scared

                  067. Birthday cards recieved: 14                                          068. Favourite clothes shop: Topshop

                  0 69. Favourite film: Monsters Inc

    070. Adobe software purchased: illegally

                082. Saturdays attended: 5        083. Chosen elective: Print-making

                           084. Trips to IKEA: 10+

                                                                                                     085. Print credits spent: £27.45

                      086. Trees  for printing used: about .428%                                                087. All nighters:  1 

                                           088. Favourite design website: www.quickhoney.com

 089. Favourite daytime TV show: Americas next top model                                         090. Stolen design technique: collage                      

                                                  091. Sketchbooks bought: 8

     0 92. Favourite game: Tomb Raider 2

                                                                                093. Favourite piece of clothing: my tan leather holdall

                    094. Macs broken: 1                                                   095. Favourite colour: Navy

                                                                 0 96. Most hated design subject: Climate Change

                         

097. Crits: far too many                                                      098. Names for dust: 100

          099. Subways purchased: at least one per week

  

                                                                                100. Most fancied peer: I can’t say

i started this course looking back as a very enthusiastic student with cliched ambition of making something of myself in something i think i really didn't know all that much about. i feel more confident now that this is a subject i would like to take forward, though my enthusiasm for the subject has lately been lost i feel i was looking for a 'style', by looking at other peoples work i think i was trying to define myself from the rest of the group but what i need to do was keep doing what i was doing. i enjoyed the briefs earlier in the course, image making and working with craft as part of my design. 

i intend to continue my practices in design over the summer, starting a new blog in preparation of the the second year of my graphic design practice and finish or merge the print based blog that i created. until later.

Carl.

OUGD103 Evaluation

1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

I feel my skills have somewhat developed in terms of presenting, working on a live brief at the start made me realise about the importance of getting my work out and into the open as a future designer. My ability to present the right amount of information on boards finally came together in the last two crits where even though they may not have been fully successful I did communicate the ideas I was trying to pursue well. I feel my communication skills have developed well this year, I have learnt the importance of a well prepared presentation and what kind of visuals are necessary to get my ideas across. This has helped my independence as designer and I have been able to work when needed on my own and despite sometimes lack of motivation there have been high and low points where I have produced lots of work in a short period of time.
Not only working independently during this module, working collaboratively during this module with fellow peer Hannah Jackson I found myself very strong at developing design concepts. Being able to share the load with a partner I felt much more at ease and so we were able to produce lots of ideas within a very short space of time. Because we both have other commitments and don’t live close to each other we were also able to work together though careful planning through the use of timetables. ­ Making to do lists has been a major priority on this module, by taking feedback from previous tutorial I was able to organise the time I had available much easier, I have also managed to organise myself better at home by organising the descriptors and helpful sheets which have made looking for them much easier.
Working on the type and grid brief has opened new doors for me giving me a new skill which I have used only briefly. Having never looked at things such as publication design before, I have been able to branch out onto a new design plane looking at editorial design and such. It has also provided me with a good structure for any type of layout design to which I feel more disciplined.
2. What approaches to/methods of problem solving have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

I thought that this time round I had definitely developed a sense of design process. Being able to find out what it was I wanted to communicate then from there, research using both primary and secondary sources and then develop and design into final product. Although not always going in the right direction I feel much more confident about what needs to be done its just carrying it through that seems to be not going as well. I did have a problem when it came to the speaking from experience brief where I knew from the start what I wanted to produce but I felt in a way that I should be more open and consider the possibilities but the idea of a book was something that I wanted to pursue, I think if I had just got stuck into it rather than think that I have to research first I could have produced a lot more work. Maybe it would have been better this time for design to derive content rather than the other way around which it should be. Working on the collaborative brief on the other hand, we stuck to what should be done, I think because that what each of us expected of each other to research then design. A subconscious way of working that benefitted us greatly.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

I have become somewhat of a master at blog surfing of late and have become very interested in what other people have been pursuing in design. My amount of supporting secondary research has been massive, yet despite looking at lots of work it is selective research which is very much related to what I was trying to achieve. The only downside of course could be that I had too much; I spent more time looking at what other people were doing than producing my own work. But as I positive I feel I have become much more engaged in the graphic design industry.
I have taken a much greater appreciation in the use of craft within design and have worked when it comes to designing straight to material and design sheets rather than straight to digital rendering. This was definitely true of the “Communication is a Virus” brief and the “How to...” brief where design sheet were handmade and even so the final although very informal was handmade also. I do aim to continue this exploration.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your own work and how will you address these more fully?

I found myself able in this past module to generate ideas very rapidly; working with Hannah Jackson on the brief “communication is a virus” we were able to collaborate very successfully producing lots of idea and then working from that idea and onto the next. I felt very strongly about some of these ideas and had developed ideas it thoughtfully in our own heads but when it came to making I feel that I lacked interest once the idea had become resolute in my mind, I felt to extent less interested and so physical mock-ups and even so the final piece lacked the quality that I normally look for. This mentality has continued right through until the end of the module, with an end to no final piece being produced at all. This I feel was very disappointing as the concept pitches that I delivered were highly successful and the ideas that I had proposed seemed to fit the brief outcomes well, yet I lacked the enthusiasm for the subject after I had come up with the idea.
This could have been due to several factors, unfortunately I have had to repeat the 1500 word essay for critical studies which took up valuable time and possibly made me feel less confident with the work I was producing. It is also coming to the end of the year and as much as I have enjoyed this year I think I am looking forward to a well earned break. It also didn’t help that in my final project I changed what I wanted to do with two weeks remaining making time very short to collect, develop and design.
Another weakness during this module was not making mock-ups and not testing any final attempts. I think this could easily be sorted through testing and communicating with my fellow colleagues.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

Try to be less distracted. A lack of motivation has led to the final brief being incomplete, something that has let down my confidence and I have disappointed myself by not trying harder when it really counts. I know that if I apply myself properly I can produce a wealthy body of work.

Produces samples and mock-ups more often as they best illustrate my final outcome and what point I am in the design process as they often count for more than a design sheet in terms of helpful feedback.

Continue the application of timetables and to-do lists to help keep motivation and organise what needs to be done with priorities coming first.

Utilise the workshops to my advantage, since the last module I haven’t actually used any of the facilities to experiment and play with design I think it is important that I book workshop time and doing something physical may help in producing more wealthy bodies of work. I thoroughly enjoyed the print-making elective that I completed it’s such a shame that I didn’t try and involve more printing processes.

Try going on impulse. I feel that sometimes I had an idea of what I wanted to do yet I felt restricted and that I should just complete it properly as a design process. If I have an idea, go for it and get it out of my system so I can work from there.

6. How would you grade yourself on the following areas (5 excellent, 1 poor):

+ Attendance 4
+ Punctuality 3
+ Motivation 2
+ Commitment 3
+ Quantity of work produced 3
+ Quality of work produced 3
+ Contribution to the group 4

A forgotton Project...

I forgot i produced this. For a brief for module OUGD102, based on a newspaper article, i produced in response to the problem of public transport over cars, a mail shot looking at the idea of how you would like to see transport and looked at the extortionate fares that seem to keep on growing for public transport, after all why would you pay more for a public service than enjoy your own company in you car? The target audience would be transport authorities and public transport users as a way of getting peoples views noticed on the debate of lower transport fares. The mail-shot idea comprised of a small 148 x 105 x 4 mm box, which can be sent the same price as a letter, and the contents would be cutouts which could be assembled to create their own scene by the recipient and emphasized the question "How would you like to see public transport?" and referenced a website (never made) to which people could submit their opinions on the debate. Looking back i thought this was a nice idea and my response the the brief i thought was very good. Heres a snapshot of the mail-shot, given we had a limit of 2 colour + stock i tried to produce a visual style based on a look of an air-fix kit and this was my first attempt at using illustrator.  

I just found these whilst blog surfing, they are limited edition prints by artist and designer Paula Scher. they are brilliant, I love the colour choices and the composition, its something you could look at over and over again and find something new every time. She also produces paintings and drawings within the same styling.

After another blog gander i found a blog of a recent graduate designer, Dan Collier. I really liked some of his work and i especially love this piece. This is what i would have produced for the project on "What is a line?" but based upon my social networking and the people that i know, with the lines of string connecting the people under different categories of people. Unfortunately this never panned out for me. Dan Collier's piece "Typographic links" maps links and connections in the world of Typography, the thread he uses acts like a form of hyperlink which helps guide the reader through the book. A beautifully crafted piece.